National trend seen in immigration legislation

Hoosier lawmakers might have viewed the bill as harshly punitive.

Hoosier lawmakers might have viewed the bill as harshly punitive.

February 06, 2006|MARTIN DeAGOSTINO Tribune Staff Writer

INDIANAPOLIS -- A national immigrants rights group says Indiana lawmakers mirrored a clear national trend in both writing and rejecting legislation to sever all public benefits for illegal immigrants. According to the National Immigration Law Center, 22 states rejected 79 similar or related measures last year, either by legislative vote, governor's veto or stalled committee action. Tanya Broder, a public benefits lawyer with the center, said the bills originate in states' frustration with federal immigration policy that is widely seen as ineffective. "Everybody agrees that something should be done at the federal level to improve our current immigration system," she said. Yet Broder said lawmakers have consistently rejected bills that seem harshly punitive, as lawmakers apparently viewed the Indiana bill. As written, the bill barred all public services to undocumented immigrants, including nonemergency health care and college enrollment. It also prohibited services that might be provided by the Family and Social Services Administration and the Department of Child Services, which investigates abuse and neglect. House lawmakers voted 74-19 against the bill last week, after a spirited call to defeat by Rep. Michael Murphy, a University of Notre Dame graduate who is chairman of the Marion County Republican Party. Murphy likened the bill to anti-immigrant crusades of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to a recent California law rejected by federal district and appeals courts. "I'm certainly heartened by the defeat in Indiana," Broder said from her law office in Oakland, Calif., "and it's consistent with the trend across the country, which we tracked last year." The vote heartened people in northern Indiana, too, according to Zulma Prieto, the editor and publisher of Goshen-based El Puente newspaper. "Because it's not a humane way of looking at immigration, and it's not taking into consideration all the factors," Prieto said. "And I think one of the main factors is that people come here to work and they are working, and I don't think they're being a burden to the community." But proponents said the bill only targeted people who enter the country without government authorization and then seek or receive tax-funded services. And they said Americans have reason to fear unchecked immigration in the post-Sept. 11 world. "Legal immigration, we accept it, we embrace it, we want it," Rep. Troy Woodruff, R-Vincennes, said. But he said Americans cannot overlook the fact that undocumented immigrants break the law in the very act of coming here. Pressed on that point, both Broder and Prieto seemed reluctant to acknowledge it. But they agreed that general frustration with federal immigration policy is driving states into an arena formerly reserved for the federal government. "Somebody has to put some order at the border," Prieto said. "I understand that." Congress is deadlocked over various reform proposals, however, including President George W. Bush's plan to grant legal status to undocumented immigrants with jobs.Yet Broder said most state proposals are ineffective because they target services and programs that most undocumented immigrants cannot by federal law receive. She said other state measures, including Indiana's defeated bill, are drawn so broadly that they exclude services allowed by federal law, including testing and treatment for communicable diseases and programs aimed at domestic violence or substance abuse. "The effect of these bills and the debate is to chill access to benefits for eligible immigrants," she said. "They rarely change what's available to undocumented immigrants." Staff writer Martin DeAgostino: mdeagostino@sbtinfo.com (317) 634-1707